Officer Transition

TRANSITION

Transition begins with recruitment and elections
• Seek a large, diverse pool of candidates. Reach out to current leaders.

Complete Officer Transition Worksheets

Discuss worksheets as an outgoing executive board

Clean out appropriate files
• Throw out old, obsolete materials. Decipher hand-written notes. Keep historical/critical materials.

Update and organize officer notebook
• Constitution, by-laws, student handbook, officer responsibilities, all pertinent forms, membership list, record of events, program evaluations, relevant resources, calendar of past year, transition worksheet, etc.

Hold a one-on-one meeting with successor
•Take the time to do it right and do it right after officers are elected. Make it comfortable. Go through information completely.
Set date, time, place for transition retreat
• Both old and new officers need to be there for it to be effective.

Hold a second one-on-one meeting with successor
•More focused on goals and answering any questions of new officer.

Hold outgoing/incoming executive board retreat

Set date, time, place for board-elect meeting

Outgoing/Incoming
Executive Board Retreat
Sample Agenda

All incoming and outgoing officers should be present. This retreat should be the opportunity to reflect upon the past year and ‘pass the torch’ to the new leaders. Keep in mind that outgoing officer attitudes can easily make or break the success of this retreat.

• Team building activity (20-30 minutes)
  
• Team responsibilities (50-60 minutes)
  -responsibilities of an executive member in general, not individual responsibilities
  
• Review calendar from last year (15-20 minutes)
  -events, busy times, high-stress periods, highest/lowest motivation times
  
• Review outgoing council’s goals, projects and activities (20-30 minutes)
  -review them all – what needs follow-up? What is near completion? What needs to be evaluated?
  
• Review council’s successes and set backs (15-20 minutes)
  
• Set calendar with commitments made by organization (20-30 minutes)
  -put in college dates and deadlines prior to organization commitments
  
• “Things I wish I knew before I became an executive board member…” (20-30 minutes)
  -similar to one-on-one worksheet, but each officer shares insights with entire group

(Total retreat time 3-4 hours)

Adapted from NIC Retreat Workbook